Devil's in the Details
by Wolf-Shadow's-Ghost
Summary: In the brief moments of solitude, between battles and bloodshed, how does a true Paragon deal with the quandary of balancing two evils for the greater good? Not well.


Devil's in the Details

Just a one-shot I've been working on since I finished ME2, I felt like I needed a better connection between the two games so I wrote this. I'm not entirely satisfied with how it turned out, so constructive criticism would be great.  
This is the same FemShep from my previous Mass Effect story, "The Darkened and Queit Corners of the Mind."

This takes place before the Suicide Mission and also well before 'Lair of the Shadow Broker' is completed.

* * *

She had fought them, had wiped out all traces of their operations on each planet she had found them on, purged each base, and made it quite clear that she would hunt them down and destroy them whenever they reared themselves, and now she served on a ship where their logo was blazed out against every otherwise bare bulkhead.

It was easier not to think too hard about it, the day went so much more smoothly and her command felt like it ran with little interference on her part when she didn't think beyond the moment. The Cerberus crew where a surprisingly good bunch, most having joined for an ideal that, on the surface, seemed like a good enough cause.

Right up until good men and woman were needlessly thrown into a nest of Thresermaw for research-Toombs' haunted expression forever burned in her mind, (the scientist who subjected him to such torture being dragged off by armed guards kicking and screaming rather than in a body bag). Up until frenzied Rachni were dragged off to secret research centers or dropped on unsuspecting Military outposts, let loose to devour and silence the songs of many lives, ( the bedraggled half-dead unit on Nepmos struggling to hold Listening Post Alpha as wave after wave of feral aliens tore at them from all sides). Until twisted Thorian Creepers were taken to make docile slaves, zombie-like though they were , (staggering numbers of the volatile green bodies she had hoped to have seen the last off on Feros, arrogant scientists trapped in a backroom offering money for their freedom, then turning guns on them when the offer is refused.

The idea of 'humanity first' seemed a noble goal to many humans fed up with the overbearing politics in the Alliance, but then, none of her crew had found the body of a respected Admiral tossed into a cage with Thorian creepers. Not a single person on this new ship had stood in dress blues, forcing themselves over a many-times rehearsed speech in a proud and unwavering manner as his wife and children sobbed at the side of the coffin, no one here knew that Kahoku had died in the line of duty protecting what he believed in.

Shepard swallowed slightly and her fingers tightened around the data pad in her hand, the memory was so clear, so quickly brought to the forefront of her mind despite all the separate objectives that still clouded her mindset….

The edges of her mind bloomed into color suddenly, stealing all of her attention away from the present. Her brain supplementing the sensations upon her skin, the scent of that afternoon invading her nose and battling against the sterile, recycled air of her quarters. She tried to push it back, to stay in the moment, but it was like sliding down a steep muddy slope, the more she clawed at the thick walls of her mind, the more the suffocating memory broke away and enveloped her, until the last of her concentration slipped from her grasp and the memory pulled her in.

The scent of freshly cut grass brings back feelings of home, ones tinged with somber and violent memories that were somehow fitting in the circumstances. The summer sunlight warm against her neck as she takes over from the priest, marching to the head of the gathering to stand in parade rest, the words to her speech all jumbled together in her head, yet somehow still blank with sorrow and worry.

All the sad eyes upon her as she pauses to collect her thoughts, the field of white headstones ahead and around them a foreboding reminder of the ends of great men and woman, past and future.

The words come to her, smoothly, easily, and she hopes she sounds as sincere as she means it to be, for all their sakes. But this isn't her first military funeral, it's far from the first speech she's ever given in the name of a fallen comrade. It's not even the first one this month, and it's the thought that it won't be the last in the next few days to come that makes her mind drown out her own voice.

It's easier not to break if you feel hollow.

The breeze tastes like fresh rain and wet cement as she winds down her speech, forgoing her own personal faith in place of the readily accepted 'Amen', knowing that it's more respectful that way.

The children walk towards the box in which their father lies, a red rose in each of their hands, trails of tears staining their own rosy cheeks as they silently set down each flower and place some small trinket of importance next to it. Military children know the respect of silence, feel like it's one last gift to their lost parent, even though their faces are twisted in pain and their lips tremble. She had never been so silent in her own mourning all those years ago.

The shots are fired, and the group begins to part, most of them having attended the public funeral earlier in the day, and this, the private farewell for family and close friends.

She was their guest of honor.

The thought makes her sick, it had been her investigations that had lead to the man's death, and here they were honored that the 'hero of the citadel' would take the time to attend an Alliance Admiral's funeral.

Quietly, she makes her way to the line in front of the family, barely noting the misery in the back of her mind that her new dress shoes cut into her ankles and the collar of the uniform is too stiff.

When it's her turn and she's standing in front of the admiral's wife, his weeping children behind their mother, she can't help but pause and just look at them for a moment. The woman manages a thin wavering smile, and breaths out a broken. "Thank you, Commander."

She chokes and brings up a handkerchief to her mouth, her hands tremble. "It means a great deal to my family that you could make it today, and I'm sure my Brian would have been very touched by your speech." The broken woman stared at the Star of Terra pinned to her chest as she talked, though the commander knew she wasn't really seeing it, only using it as an anchor.

She knew too well how much harder it became when you could see your own sorrow reflected in the eyes of another.

"I just wish…" the brown eyes suddenly look up into her own, desperate, searching. "I wish I knew what happened! They won't say anything, but I know it wasn't his heart, he was always so careful! He can't be gone just like that!" the children quieted slightly, starting up at her with eyes that seek answers. "Please, Commander! They won't tell me anything, but you have to know something, you, you were…" a renewed sob tears from the other woman's throat and she bends her head into her hands, her whole body shaking.

Her hands come up and grasp softly at the smaller woman's arms, the black velvet slick and cold under her hands. "Mrs. Kahoku, I can only tell you this." she is surprised at the strength in her own voice, and she stares hard into the brown eyes of the other woman when their gazes meet again. "Your husband died a hero, ma'am, I assure you. Don't let anyone tell you different."

Maybe she's imagining it, but she thinks she sees just the barest sliver of hope amidst the slightly renewed strength in those eyes, just a flicker of some understanding.

The Commander let her arms drop as the Mrs. squared her shoulders and swallowed.

"Thank you, ma'am."

Military wives learn to be strong.

Shepard clawed desperately back to reality, knowing exactly where the memory was headed, and also knowing she wouldn't be able to hold onto herself if she let it go that far. She hadn't moved an inch upon the couch, and while the holographic clock on the bedside table told her that less than a minute had passed, she felt as though she had lived through several years.

Sometimes she wondered if her mind was trying to correct itself, trying to compensate for the two years she had lost to death. It was a hard concept to grasp at the best of times, even when the proof showed itself in her former crewmates, her friends.

She let out a long breath and set the data pad down on the table in front of her, feeling the satisfying 'click' through her fingertips as the dropped it the last few centimeters, then reaching for the glass of water.

She took a long pull to sooth the dryness that had visited itself upon her mouth and throat, thinking about this, the most recent episode of what she had dubbed, sporadic recollection syndrome. It had started in a small way just after Eden prime, an after effect of the Prothean beacons and, later, the cipher. Chakwas theorized it was a way for her altered mind to remember which memories were her own and which were artificially laid upon her, those that belonged to her alone becoming clearer and easier to recall, while the beacon information remained a distant thought at the back of her mind, forever present, but not distracting.

After her, reawakening, the situation had increased in occurrence and intensity, to the point where she literally fell into her own memories as if she was reliving them all over again. It was both a blessing and a curse, not at all dissimilar from how Thane had described his memories.

She sighted softly as she set the empty glass back down on the table, the silken coolness of the water still present upon her lips as the last fragments of the memory flashed through her brain. Clear as a photograph, but unmoving, faces mostly, the priest, Mrs. Kahoku, the children… then a blue skinned face, soft rounded cheeks with light freckles across the nose and under the sky blue eyes, lilac lips holding a sad smile as they lean in for a quick kiss.

There were no words for this mental flash, none had been spoken between the two of them as they had walked off the graveyard, hands twined together…

A terrible burning twitch shot through her legs accompanied by remorseful frustration that rubbed corrosively against her heart. Shepard stood quickly, pacing agitatedly towards the fish tank, and starting unseeingly into it, furiously grabbing at any stray though to keep the memories at bay, to bury raw emotion below duty.

Duty, a word that always meant the same thing, even when the reasons behind it were different. For years, her duty had been to the Alliance, to her CO, to her rank, and eventually, to the soldiers serving under her. Then, her duty had been to the council, working as a specter, but now her duty was warped, torn several directions by circumstances far beyond her scope of control.

Duty to her friends, old and new, Garrus and Tali needed her as much as she needed them, familiarity and comradely one of the few anchors of sanity she had left to her, Joker and Chackwas needed her, their former ties to the Alliance all having been severed raw with the jagged knife of abandonment, finding in each other a safe harbor for the threads that still remanded.

She had a duty to the new squad too, each of them needed something, and she was all too willing to give whatever they might need. Considering the very nature of the mission, the relatively simple needs might be the last things her squad received.

The mission, that was the duty that pulled her on, day after day. Human colonists were vanishing, and she seemed to be the only one with the will and way to do something to stop it. This mission made the last feel almost easy. Before, she had a enemy, a face to hunt, a single snake to behead, but here was a centuries old mystery, a foe veiled by uncertainty and misinformation, and yet linked to the greatest threat of all.

Even at the start, the first moment the Illusive man spoke of whole colonies vanishing without trace, the old burned visions flashed back, terror from the skies silencing all cries of despair and pain. There was only one thing advanced enough to make hundreds of thousands simply vanish, and Cerberus had returned her to life because she was the only one who knew about them, or at least, believed they were a real threat.

And there was the final conundrum of her torn duty, Cerberus held her now, they had spent precious time and resources to bring her, a single individual, back from the dead because she was an icon, a modern day God-slayer. They had worked tirelessly to give her a bigger and better Normandy to command, filled it with intelligent and willing crew members, trusting her with each of their lives. Had provided every shred of information on the enemy and upon the greatest warriors of the galaxy, given her every advantage they could for a mission she would have undertaken without all these things anyway.

But she had seen the results of their failed radicalism, her former body had scars inflected upon it by maddened creatures they had tried to make submissive, had stood at funerals for good men and woman who's deaths had been a direct result of Cerberus.

There were too many projects gone 'rouge' to be coincidence, and the twisted and violent biotic woman in her engine room was only one of too many faces that had paid the price for justifying the means to an end. The pro-human bias would divide the universe when unity was needed most, and humanity would be the first to pay the price. All of them left vulnerable by such rifts that had little meaning when a greater threat swept in.

When the Reapers came to cull.

But the Reapers were the very reason she still worked with the group she quietly hated so, she needed help, and, as toxic and painful though it was, Cerberus was the only hand left to hold onto. The deep irony was never lost on her, the organization she had weakened two years before was now her only support.

The duty she had to Cerberus for bringing her back to life, kept her from stealing away incriminating evidence to give to the Alliance and Council when and if she returned from her mission, and the duty she had to the living galaxy to stop a massacre no one believed in, kept the Alliance and the Council from working with her.

Shepard left out a long sigh and she retreated to the desk chair, still starting unseeingly at the fish tank. She didn't think about this often, because it made her feel a traitor, even though she knew she was doing what was necessary.

Metaphorically, she was working with a lesser demon to defeat the devil while the 'angels' plugged their ears and squabbled over economics and other droll and unimportant topics.

She snorted and brushed a strand of blonde hair from her eyes. Thinking of the Council as angels was a highly inaccurate metaphor, perhaps Icarus worked better. She twisted in the swivel chair and caught sight of the single photoframe sitting upon the desk, the same face in the picture as the one that greeted her at the end of that funeral.

No, the word angel was reserved for those who really deserved it, no matter how much they had changed in the two years she had been gone…

Unbidden, the faces of Admiral Kahoku's flashed across her mind again, and she was reminded that everyone had an angel they wanted to protect, and often they would do so at any cost.

Biting her lip she reached for the frame and cradled it in her palms, running the pads of her thumbs over the cold metal, and remembering the way the lips of the photo's sole inhabit tasted.

Shepard closed her eyes. "Please forgive me," she whispered, unsure who exactly she was asking, maybe Admiral Kahoku, maybe the soldiers killed by crazed rachni, maybe just herself. "I do what I have to do and protect what I can, one day I'll try to fix whatever I might have broken, but for now, please believe that I will always stay true to myself."

She carefully set the photo back down on the desk without looking at it, and slowly walked back down to the couch, eyes landing on the half finished report. Somehow, she felt slightly better, the situation was still frustrating and often conflicting, but she knew that she was doing the right thing, and that eventually, she'd get the opportunity to tell the Illusive man how she really felt about him and his organization. If nothing else she had learned karma was a very real thing, and that everyone eventually got their due.

Right now she had to focus on the very real threat of the collectors and on preparing her team. Not all of them were 'good' people, and most had their own reasons for following her lead, but given the nature of their suicidal quest to stop the cullings of human colonies, she thought of each of them as avenging angels.

Shepard's Avenging Angels.

She made a sound half-way between a snort and a laugh. "You're getting old, Shep, waxing nostalgia like that. Angels, right." she shook her head, and retrieved the data pad.

Regardless, she knew each of them was important to her and she would safeguard each of them to the very best of her ability.


End file.
